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Industry and Consumer Views on Improving Sustainability and Circularity of Materials Intended for Single Use
Summary
This study surveyed industry stakeholders and consumers in Germany to understand barriers to adopting sustainable and circular packaging materials, finding that price remains the dominant purchase driver. The research identifies how companies can make sustainable packaging more commercially attractive and how clearer end-of-use guidance can improve recycling rates.
Abstract Despite advances in more sustainable materials and plastics, the industry still faces challenges in commercializing them. The most critical factor for other businesses and consumers to make a purchase decision remains to be price. The current study aims at going beyond financial reasonings for the purchase decision and focuses on outlying industry (N = 6) and consumer (N = 42) views on the potential to improve the use of circularity and sustainability of materials. Both datasets were collected from Germany. The results detail the factors affecting the use of recyclable and biobased packaging materials in industry and further, the pricing of such products. The consumer study highlights the attitudes towards end-of-use of single-use plastics and aims pointing out the logic of a consumer when they decide to ignore the sorting instructions. Together, the two datasets create an overview on how the companies could be encouraged to use more sustainable materials in their products and how to ensure that the more sustainable products could be sorted and recycled accordingly, in order to boost circularity. The paper will give concrete recommendations for businesses in order to make their sustainable products more attractive to business-to-business markets and end user consumers.